Upper Palaeolithic Homo sapiens subsistence has long been correlated with a shift in site use and occupation intensity (meaning they stayed for longer at one location), and an expansion in diet breadth to include smaller and faster animals. However, the role of subsistence differences in the replacement of Neanderthals by Homo sapiens is still poorly understood. This is partly because Palaeolithic bone assemblages are dominated by small non-diagnostic bone fragments, meaning that for 70-90% of the bones recovered from an archaeological site we do not know what type of animal (or human) they belonged to. The method of Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) can now identify these fragments through variations in their collagen. The aim of this PhD is to further develop the field of biomolecular zooarchaeology, fully integrating ZooMS and zooarchaeological datasets to reconstruct past survival strategies.
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